Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

This page contains links to the documentation currently available for Windows Firewall, for both the version available on Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) or later and Windows Server 2003, and the version available on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008.

IPsec

This page contains links to the documentation currently available for Internet Protocol security (IPsec), for both the version available on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, and the version available as connection security rules in Windows Firewall with Advanced Security on Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008.

This article describes a downloadable update available for Windows XP with SP2 and Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1). (The update is built into Windows XP with SP3 and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2). The update changes the behavior of IPsec negotiation so that the IPsec policy rules can be simplified, in some cases significantly reducing the number of required IP filters and their ongoing maintenance.